PH5 Essential Terminology and Tips

Essential Terminology

• PH5: a version of the HDF5 hierarchical data format.
• master.ph5: The PH5 file with metadata. A PH5 can only have one master.ph5.
• miniPH5_xxxxx.ph5: The PH5 files with data, where xxxxx is a number (e.g., 00001).
• SmartSolo .segd: SEGD 2.1 files written out using SmartSolo software.
• Fairfield .fcnt and .rg16: Fairfield continuous SEGD 1.6 files written out using Fairfield software.
• Array table(s): Metadata table(s) with .kef extension describing the stations in the PH5.
• Event table(s): Metadata table(s) with .kef extension describing any sources in the PH5.

Tips

• PH5 accepts the following data input formats: Fairfield .fcnt or .rg16, SmartSolo .segd, RT130 .cf or .ZIP, RT125 .TRD, and SEG2.
• If your experiment used both SmartSolo and Fairfield nodes, two or more sample rates, and/or two or more gains, offloading the files (.segd, .fcnt) with different line (array) numbers is strongly recommended. Different jobs may be required for offloading the files, and the files will need to be in separate input lists and separate pforma runs prior to Merge.
• Do NOT build multiple PH5s for the same experiment.
• EPIC uses a window length of 30 minutes when writing out SmartSolo .segd and Fairfield .fcnt. Please be aware that almost all PH5 enhancements and bug fixes have been tested with data that has 30 minute windows.
• The nodal datalogger serial number is determined by the line and station number, not the physical node serial number. Do NOT duplicate line and station number in the same experiment during nodal file offload unless you have swapped in different nodes at the same station site at different times (e.g., node A at station 1001 for 30 days, then node B at station 1001 for 30 days, and so on).
• PH5 automatically retains all metadata tables loaded, so if you need to update a table, you also need to remove the old version of the table.
• When building a Fairfield PH5, do NOT use the NRL response files at the resp_load step, as this will cause amplitudes to be off by approximately four orders of magnitude.
• The utility dumpfair is now called dumpsegd.
• When loading SmartSolo data in pforma, the processing directories may take some time to appear.
• If a pforma progress bar turns orange, this is a failure to ingest data. After finding and resolving the problem, start the pforma run from the beginning.
• Fairfield and SmartSolo data create array tables automatically. If you need to edit these, request them with ph5tokef and make updates; building array table csvs for noven is not necessary. (Array table csvs are still needed for other data formats.)